Galois field Multiplication, Multiply-Add and Multiply-Accumulate operations are used in a number of applications. For example, in executing forwarded error control (FEC) coding schemes such as Reed-Solomon, sixteen syndromes must be calculated using polynomials over a Galois field. This is done recursively using Homer's rule. For example: 1+x+x2+x3+x4 can also be written recursively as x(x(x(x+1)+1)+1)+1 which requires a series of multiply-add operations. Multiply-accumulate operations are required in advance encryption standards (AES) cipher function for the MixColumn transformation where a matrix is multiplied by a vector. In very long instruction word (VLIW) processors there are a number of compute units e.g., multiplier, adder and shifter. Thus at any time while one value is undergoing multiplication, the product of the previous multiplication can be undergoing an add operation. This simultaneous operation or pipelining enables a long string of n values to be completely processed in only n+1 cycles instead of 2n cycles. However in smaller processors where one compute unit must do all the function, each value requires two cycles to accomplish multiply and add operations, thus 2n cycles are required to process a set of n values.